


the aftertaste of glory

by Sour_Idealist



Category: Promare (2019)
Genre: Emotional Fallout, Established Relationship, M/M, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-21
Updated: 2019-12-21
Packaged: 2021-02-18 08:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,284
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21890971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sour_Idealist/pseuds/Sour_Idealist
Summary: Galo is getting pretty good at noticing when something is bothering Lio, now.
Relationships: Lio Fotia/Galo Thymos
Comments: 12
Kudos: 257





	the aftertaste of glory

**Author's Note:**

> Lessons from the past two weeks:  
> 1) Promare is a good movie.  
> 2) I think my new meds are working well.

Watching Lio read is kind of hilarious.

The thing is that Lio always takes up all the space that he can fill, but apparently he also needs at least three limbs to hold a book, so he ends up in convoluted knots that kind of give Galo’s spine sympathy aches. Right now he’s sprawled sideways over the corner off the couch, left foot planted flat to the floor and right knee crooked up, so he can balance the book between his left palm and the back of his right thigh. His right hand is reserved for turning pages.

Occasionally he’ll switch, flinging his right leg up onto the back of the couch and crooking his left leg into a bookstand. It involves shifting his whole body twenty degrees, and he doesn’t seem to notice he’s doing it.

Galo is not actually sitting around staring at Lio while he reads. That would be kind of weird. He has a game open on his phone and a bag of chips at his side, and he’s splitting his attention pretty evenly between the three.

A third of his attention is enough to notice Lio’s shoulders tensing up by inches, though. The furrow between his eyebrows is getting deeper by slow degrees. Galo figures at first that the book is either exciting or very bad, and doesn’t think any more about it; then he catches the soft, pained huff that interrupts Lio’s breath.

“You okay?” Galo asks, nudging gently at Lio’s knee.

“Fine,” Lio says, which really only tells Galo that he’s conscious.

“Whatcha reading?”

Lio holds up the cover for an answer, but says, “It’s a book of essays by athletes.” This is about par for the course. The Promepolis library will give you a card on the strength of name and address alone, though without an ID you can only check out three books at once, and Lio seems to be treating it like an all-you-can-eat buffet slowed over weeks: he’s determined to try at least one of everything.

“Is it any good?”

Lio, wise to Galo’s concern at this point, takes a moment to answer, and Galo can actually watch him decide to be honest about it, which is cool. “Here,” he says, and, turning back a page, reads out: “ _I don’t think it’s any more or less than the truth to say that for a while, I managed to ride the edge of perfection, or at least, to reach as close to it as a human being can come. My friend Rene Conlee, who is both a poet and the only reason this essay is in any shape worth reading, would call it the sublime. I knew going in, of course, that there would be a cost, and even in the middle of the jet-lag and the three o’clock mornings, the dates I had no time for and the ache that never faded, only migrated from one muscle to another limb — even in the worst of it, I knew the greater part of the cost had been deferred, and was still waiting to come due. Maybe none of us can afford glory except on credit.”_ He clears his throat.

“ _What I didn’t realize, not for years, was that the hardest part of the price is this: to touch the sublime, to cup it for a moment between your hands, and then to let it go. Because you must let it go. And then you realize, slowly, over the following years, that it was the last time. Your feet have slowed; your reach is smaller. You will never touch those heights again.”_ Lio’s voice goes rough and shaky on the last word.

It takes Galo a moment to get it, and then all at once he does. Because if just anyone could call for dragons, if the Promare burned that hot and vast under every Burnish hand — if someone with a pettier, crueler soul than Lio’s had that power, even just one person, someone like Kray —

Galo doesn’t like this train of thought, so he stops it. Instead, he catapults himself over the barrier of Lio’s knees and sweeps him into a hug, cupping Lio’s head close to his shoulder. Lio lets out a slow breath and turns his face into Galo’s neck, which means Galo was right about what’s wrong.

“If we’d kept it we’d all be dead,” he says, muffled in Galo’s skin. “I wouldn’t change anything, if I could go back. I just…”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it,” Galo says, rubbing slow circles on his back. (Good hugs aren’t a formal part of firefighter training, but they _should_ be. They’re important.) “But hey, listen. My soul doesn’t burn so bright because I’m a good firefighter. I’m a good firefighter _because_ of my soul. If there weren’t any fires at all suddenly — like, all the normal ones stopped for some reason — I wouldn’t know what to do with myself for a while, but I’d still be me. You know?”

“No,” Lio says, after a moment. “I don’t.”

“Um.” Articulating his thoughts sucks. “You’re still _you._ You were good at —” not _at starting fires — “_ at using the Promare because you’re brave and you’re stubborn. And you care about people. None of that went away! You’re going to do a ton of cool stuff with it. I bet your — what’d they do?”

“What, in the book?” Lio lifts his head out of Galo’s neck a little. “She was a figure skater.”

“Yeah. I bet she did a ton of cool stuff later, too.” Galo leans back enough to look Lio in the face, serious and sure. “You’re still you, and you’re great. So you’re going to be great.”

There’s a soft smile at the edge of Lio’s mouth, not quite taking over. “It’s not the same,” he says, quiet, but he takes Galo’s had in his.

“Okay,” Galo says. “It’s true, though.” He pauses. “Do you… do you just need to be sad about it for a minute?” He tries to remember: sometimes people do.

“Mmm.” Stiff and slow, as if he doesn't want anyone to see he's doing it, Lio lowers his head back into the crook of Galo’s shoulder. Okay, then. This part is easy enough, though: all Galo has to do is hold him.

Lio sits up after a minute or two, and squeezes Galo's hands between his. “Thank you,” he says, not quite meeting Galo's eyes, and glances over. “Where's my book?”

“On the floor, I think,” Galo says, and scoops it up for him. “Hey, y'know, I meant it. The figure skater wrote a pretty great essay, didn't she?”

“She had a lot of help,” Lio points out, running his fingers over the cover.

“Yeah, but you have help too. You have all the Burnish, and Burning Rescue, and the greatest firefighter in the world. And...” Galo trails off, because Lio has set a finger gently to his lips. “What?”

“You're something else, Galo Thymos,” Lio says, in the same way he says _you're an idiot,_ which is to say: warm and rich and rolling, wryly amused, so fond that Galo could soak in it like a flower in the sun.

“Yup,” Galo agrees. Lio shakes his head, smiling, and settles himself back on the couch, this time curled up against Galo's shoulder. He braces his book, this time, on the crook of Galo's arm, which is going to go numb eventually, but that's not for a while yet. In the meantime, Galo leans his head against Lio's hair, and yawns. Tomorrow there's more work to do, a world to build, greatness to touch, in slow small ways. For now, he eats another chip and listens to Lio turning pages.


End file.
